Sunday, November 15, 2009

Week 10: Types of Disabilites, Accomodations and Readings

Types of Disabilites & Accomodations: I really liked the video about down syndrome. As a niece of a high functioning uncle who is MR, I can appreciate how many things people with MR can do. He worked his entire life and bought himself a new car every 7 years and was involved with Kiwanis and the Lions club in his community. I do wonder what he could have learned if technology was around when he was younger. Unfortunately, he is currently dying of cancer at the age of 76.

Spinal cord injuries got a lot of press with Christopher Reeve's disability. At my school we do not accomodate people in wheelchairs. There is no elevator. I often ponder what if the next Stephen Hawking wanted to go to our school we would have to turn him away.

My sister has MS and was diagnosed at 23. At 30 she has already had related health issues and is deteriorating. It's still hard for her to accept she has an illnesss she has to manage at such a young age.

We do accomodate learning disabilites at our school and have a wonderful teacher who handles developing IPs for each individual student who needs one. It includes more time on tests and specific tutoring.

Vision difficulties are something I think we could accomodate more at my school especially in the library with technology. We currently have all our signs in braille but do not have any books. We would have to interlibrary loan them.

Reading: I liked Odin's chapter. I have written many proposals and I am excited about writing this Technology Plan because it reminds me of the RFPs I've written in the past. I have collected a lot of data about what teachers and departments come into the library but not a lot on how technology is used by those students who need accomodations. I think I will add this to my current data collection list.

Ivy- This weeks topic definitely prompted me to think of the disabled people that have been a part of my life both professionally and personally. It's great that you have these references to draw from when needing to think out of the box to assist a unique learner.

I also agree that writing this technology plan will be beneficial as it will force us to really examine the needs of our students and the direction we would like to move in as a school.